Residents to choose between incumbent, ex-council member
Posted on Saturday, November 22, 2008
Greenland residents will have a choice Tuesday between incumbent Alderman Carroll E. Hancock and Lonnie Meadows, who is no stranger to Greenland government.
Both are vying in the Tuesday runoff to fill the Ward 3, Position 1 seat.
Hancock, 71, is running for a third term on the Greenland City Council. Retired, he has lived in Greenland for about 14 years. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor six years ago.
He said city officials are nearing completion on the rezoning project, which is one reason he is running for re-election.
“I want to see that through,” he said.
He also said, “we’re trying to see what we can do to promote the school and get it back on solid ground.”
Meadows, 60, has lived in Greenland for 14 years. He is a master electrician. He served on the City Council for two years in the early part of the decade and as chairman of the planning commission from 1998 to 2006. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor two years ago.
He said he has been out of government for a couple of years “and I just wanted to get back in. I enjoy serving the city, and I think I can do some things, with experience, that my opponent hasn’t seemed to do.”
He referred to the city’s recently lifted moratoriums on development and the rezoning process that has been going on for the past two years.
“I think I could have been a little more help than he was,” Meadows said of Hancock.
The City Council in August lifted moratoriums on residential and commercial development. The passage of both moratoriums gave the city a window of time to come up with master land-use and street plans. Looking at areas that need to be rezoned is the next step in the process.
Meadows said he believes the rezoning is going to be an improvement, but added, “I think it’s taking too long to get that settled.”
He said the moratorium “turned away a couple of promising businesses that could have been a big asset to the city.”
He said he wants to try to “get some business” in Greenland for the tax base plus the property tax for the schools.
“The school’s a big issue now,” he said.
Meadows also said he will try to be more responsive to the people in the ward.
Hancock said he is better qualified than Meadows “because I’ve been involved in what’s going on right now and feel like I’m better qualified to see that through.”
“We’ve been involved in rezoning our areas and trying to get ready to develop the I-540 corridor,” he said.
“We don’t want to develop just helter-skelter,” he said. “It’s just a pretty desirable area for businesses right now, or will be shortly.”
Meadows said he believes the rezoning is going to be an improvement, but added, “I think it’s taking too long to get that settled.”
Hancock said he supports commercial activity that is controlled.
“People in Greenland are interested in having some businesses that they can patronize, family-like businesses, things they can do, without having to go to Fayetteville to spend their money,” Hancock said.
He said he is referring to businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores.
Asked about questions raised concerning the city’s leadership in recent months, Hancock said, “I think we’re all making an effort to try to get along right now. I’m satisfied right now.”
On June 9, the City Council and most of the planning commissioners asked for Mayor John Gray’s resignation, and he declined to provide it.
Meadows said the council “just dropped” the matter.
“They didn’t like the way he was leading,” Meadows said. “I was kind of left out in the dark on that.”
As a resident of the town, he said he is unhappy with Gray as mayor.
He said Gray is too restrictive on development.
“I think he’s trying to make an issue of competing with Fayetteville,” Meadows said. “You can’t do that with a town of 2,000 versus a town in the seventy thousands.”
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